Hydraulic systems are employed in many circumstances to provide hydraulic power from a hydraulic power source to multiple loads. In particular, such hydraulic systems are commonly employed in a variety of work vehicles such as utility trucks and loader-backhoes. In such vehicles, the loads powered by the hydraulic systems may include a variety of hydraulically actuated devices, such as piston-cylinder assemblies for lowering, raising, and rotating arms and for lowering and raising buckets, as well as hydraulically-powered motors for driving tracks or wheels of vehicles. Although the various hydraulically actuated devices may be powered by a single source (e.g., a single pump), the rates of fluid flow to the different devices can be independently controllable, through the use of separate control valves (typically spool valves or pilot valves) that are independently controlled by an operator of the work vehicle or a control system. In such hydraulic system applications, the control valves may be used as components in a valve bank including many such control valves as well as other valves, where the control valves may control the other valves, such as slave valves.
The operation of the hydraulically actuated devices depends upon hydraulic fluid flow to those devices, which in turn may depend upon the operation of the control valves, such as pilot valves, controlling the hydraulic fluid flow between various ports of the control valves. More particularly, hydraulic fluid flow to those devices may depend upon the functionality of control valves to quickly and accurately switch between positions of the control valves restricting and allowing fluid flow between a pressure source and the hydraulically actuated devices.